On Spotlight

Welcome to learn more about our efforts to strengthen digital Skills and capacity to cooperate on a common topic pressing in light of the global pandemic that continues ravaging our countries and communities. I want to thank Robotverksted for partnering with the DUGER TECH unit. I want to also thank other organizations and institutions for helping us frame our discussions that were part of the DUGER collaboration roundtables.

Thanks to our capacity building and knowledge workshops, we have been able to join forces and contribute to the critical work around building a roadmap to foster digital skilling of the local population during the global lockdown.

Our role as active members of Norwegian civil society has assumed a new dimension. COVID-19 has thrown a sharp spotlight on what it really means to be socially unconnected in the digital age. Undoubtedly, the next 10 years will also be a time of ever more rapid technological progress.

The transformative pathways and accelerated action we’re searching for to drive faster progress toward the SDGs need to be built on broadband digital technologies. These are the vital catalyst that will help us follow the UN Secretary General’s roadmap on digital cooperation. This means empowering people to use, adapt and develop digital tools together; it will be a fundamental stepping stone to progress on each of the 17 SDGs.

The Covid pandemic has underscored the importance of meaningful connectivities to people’s livelihoods, employment, health, well-being, education, and social participation. The crisis has also served as a wake-up call to the global community to renew efforts to connect people. When 3.6 billion people are still offline, we have never faced a greater urgency.

Suppose there can be one positive outcome out of this terrible global catastrophe. It is a critical part of that in developing countries and rich countries worldwide that have been out of school and have lost access to formal education due to the lack of connectivity. The lack of skills and capacity to use digital tools may represent a lost opportunity.

We want to ensure that all young people have access to the extraordinary power of online learning.
We’re looking forward to getting our first round of activities up and running with an ambitious rollout schedule and active recruitment of partner organizations because there’s no time to lose.

There are thousands of job vacancies out there that go unfilled each year simply because of the need for a digitally skilled workforce. Companies have a missed opportunity to bring greater diversity to the tech industry, especially when we finally get to a post-Covid.

World governments, educational institutions, and Industry need to unite by putting digital at the heart of every nation’s recovery. We have aligned our work with the UN’s global “Building back better” campaign. For us, this will mean prioritizing policies and programs that dramatically boost connectivity and digital competence and strengthening human skills and capacities in communications.

Bridging the digital divide will become a reality when people everywhere have access to information products and services. And they are equally equipped with the digital skills they need to match the employment and entrepreneurship requirements of the fast-growing digital economy. We want to find effective ways of nurturing those digital skills to improve their lives and drive sustainable development by working in partnership with other stakeholders.

Our programs aim to ensure that younger generations are equipped with these digital skills, the skills they need to benefit from employment opportunities. We are developing mentor programs with clear, committed guidelines and policies to extend our activities to primary and secondary schools, universities, VET, and adult training institutions.
I look forward to learning more and benefiting from the wisdom and, of course, the experience of our mentors. With that, I thank everyone for joining us thank you.